China discovers method to reveal sender’s personal information in Apple AirDrop
Recently, Apple announced new additions to the existing capabilities of AirDrop, with a focus on enhancing user security. While AirDrop has been a useful tool for protesters and activists to conceal their activities from governments, it has also been a subject of controversy. Chinese authorities have raised concerns about this feature on iPhones. It has been discovered that when AirDrop is set to “receive messages from Everyone” mode, it can receive files and messages from anyone, leading to significant privacy issues. China’s recent crackdown has resulted in the exposure of senders’ personal information such as names, phone numbers, and email addresses. This poses a concern not only for Apple but for all users, particularly activists worldwide. To learn more about the vulnerabilities of AirDrop, click here.
Addressing the AirDrop vulnerability
According to a Chinese government blog, protesters used the feature to share details or information censored by the government. It also accused users of anti-government activities and influencing protesters. During the crackdown, Beijing’s Wangshendongjian Forensic Appraisal Institute conducted research and found a way to crack Apple AirDrop, exposing users’ personal information.
The report stated that “Fields related to the sender’s device name, email address, and mobile phone number were stored in the form of hash values, and some fields related to the hash value were hidden.” In this crackdown, the police caught several suspects, but it was not said if any of them have been arrested. However, there were no signs of the content being encrypted, but the senders’ information was searched using the AirDrop function.
It has been alleged that the feature has been used to send illegal images, videos, audio and other information to people in crowded places such as subways, buses and shopping malls to stir up trouble. The blog stated that “this behavior cannot be effectively controlled by traditional network monitoring methods.” Due to lack of internet connection.
Now, the question for most AirDrop users is how Apple will deal with this newly emerged issue and whether it will issue another update to fix the security hole.
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